Determination of shelter locations and evacuation routes for a possible earthquake in the city of Istanbul

Abstract

In this study, the location of disaster response and relief facilities in Istanbul is investigated in view of a possible earthquake. Our objective is to determine and analyze the assignments of demand nodes to shelter nodes. We propose two mathematical models for this purpose. Model 1 is a path based model, in which the possible paths are determined by preprocessing the network data to assign demands to shelters while obeying path capacities. Model 2 is an arc based model that uses the network data directly and creates the paths as a byproduct of the solution. Both of the models ensure that each demand node is served by at least a shelter node in accordance with road and shelter capacities. We examine the effect of the shelter capacity, the number of shelters, and the road capacities on the results in different cases. In these cases, we find out that the shelter capacity, number of shelters, and road capacities influence the shelters to be opened, the assignment of the demand nodes to these shelters and the used arcs/paths in this assignment.